Hiya Honey! Look what I’ve got for you today – A dreamy and creamy blueberry thyme raw cake – A cake that can also be found on the cover of the latest THRIVE magazine. That’s right, babe, my cake is an actual cover girl! So sooo amazing! There’s also a four page spread & a feature of me in the magazine in where I share some of my food secrets + many many other great features and recipes of super talented recipe creators.

I first created this blueberry raw cake in the spring with a collaboration with a Finnish salad and herb producer Järvikylä when I made an adaptation of their thyme blueberry cake and during the summer the cake photo has become easily one of my most shared and liked IG posts ever and it has been so much fun to see people making their own creations of it and posting them on their pages and sharing them with me. The beauty and magic of Instagram.

To celebrate my cover photo I thought to share the recipe here on my site too – So here you go, my friend, go and enjoy these blueberry filled dream bites!

V

Dreamy Blueberry Thyme Raw Cake

(gluten free, dairy-free, naturally sweetened)

Base:

½ cup pecan nuts

½ almonds

7 fresh dates, pitted (or dried organic soft apricots)

a pinch of sea salt

Filling:

2 cups cashew nuts (soaked for 30 minutes & rinsed)

½ ripe banana

¼ cup coconut oil, melted

5-6 tbsp raw organic honey (or maple syrup or coconut syrup)

¼ cup oat milk or almond milk

fresh lemon juice from ½ lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup blueberries

a handful of fresh thyme leaves

On top:

blueberries

fresh thyme

Pan diameter: 18 cm / 7 inches

Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of a cake pan. Place the almonds and nuts into a food processor or a high-speed blender and blend until crust. Add dates or apricots and salt and blend until moldable dough. Press the dough firmly into the bottom of the cake pan. Prepare the filling.

Place all the filling ingredients (except blueberries and thyme) into the food processor / blender and blend until smooth. Add some dairy free milk, if needed, to get a smooth texture, still keeping it as thick as possible. Pour about ⅓ of the mixture into the cake pan and smooth out the surface. Add blueberries and thyme to the food processor / blender and blend with the remaining mixture. Taste and add some spices if needed. Spoon the filling into the cake pan and even the surface gently with a spoon so that you don’t mix the white and the purple filling. Top with blueberries. Place the cake pan into the freezer for about 2-3 hours or until the cake is solid. Remove the cake from the pan and place it on a serving dish. Let thaw for a moment. Sprinkle on some thyme leaves, serve and enjoy. Store in the fridge.

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Laura11.10.2017 14:47

This looks amazing! I want to bake asap!! I'm new to veganisn (5 weeks strong) and also fairly new to baking. What does it mean by "dried, soft apricots"? Are they sold that way? Or I need to buy fresh apricots and dry them somehow? Appreciate the help! Thanks!!

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You probably remember the N’Ice Cream book by me and my co-author Tuulia Talvio that was launched exactly a year ago, first in Finland and in the US and then later in the year in 6 countries, like in France, German and Chroatia. The book has found it’s home in the arms of so many healthy ice cream lovers around the world that it is hard to even realize. So thank you! There is no better feeling than when your passion inspires people, makes an impact and is even a part of a cultural change (the ever so lovely ice cream culture), like now for example when we’ve been witnessing many big brands bringing out their vegan ice creams with better sweeteners after the last summer in Finland.

We have not been talking about an ice cream revolution for no reason! * raised fist emoji *

Note, that this Deluxe Edition is only available in Finnish and as an ebook and you can download it here. We’ll try to find a way to get these bonus recipes out also in English in some form asap!

But so that you international readers won’t have to return with empty hands, here’s one faaabulous nice cream flavor for you to exploit: Deluxe Chocolate Nice Cream with Peanut Butter Swirls and Raw Chocolate Cake Chunks! I came up with it by accident when I decided to blend together chocolate mousse (from my Chocolate Pizza Post) and frozen banana. So freakingly delicious. Then I also stirred in some raw chocolate cake chunks and peanut butter swirls and I honestly almost started to cry when tasting it. That’s what pure pleasures can do to you.

When scooping balls from this nice cream a song by Barry White, Can’t get enough of your love, babe, started playing in my mind:

“I’ve heard people say that Too much of anything is not good for you, baby Oh no But I don’t know about that There’s many times that we’ve loved We’ve shared love and made love It doesn’t seem to me like it’s enough There’s just not enough of it There’s just not enough Oh oh, babe

My darling I, can’t get enough of your love babe…”

That kind of sums up the whole essence of this nice cream. You just can’t get enough of it – And you don’t even have to. As good stuff makes good to you.

V

Deluxe Chocolate Nice Cream

Serves 3

(vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free)

½ cup steamed sweet potato pieces

¼ cup cashew nuts, soaked for about 1 hour

3 fresh dates, pitted

¼ cup almond milk, or other dairy free milk

4 tbsp raw cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

3-4 frozen bananas

peanut butter

raw chocolate cake chunks

Place steamed sweet potato sliced, cashews, dates, almond milk, cocoa powder, vanilla ja coconut oil into a blender and blend until tick mousse. Add frozen and sliced bananas. Blend until soft serve. If your blender is small you can do this in two or three batches. Pour the soft serve in a big freezer safe container. Mix in the raw cake crumble and pour over some peanut butter. Freeze for about 30 minutes or until the mixture gets a bit harder. Serve and enjoy!

Raw Chocolate Cake Chunks:

½ cup gluten-free rolled oats

½ cup almonds

3 fresh dates, pitted

4 tbsp raw cocoa powder

a pinch of sea saltPlace all ingredients into a blender and blend until crumble. Taste and add sweetener if needed. The dough should be quite dry but easily moldable. Roll into small chunks with your hand and sprinkle the nice cream batter with the chunks.

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Jessica19.5.2017 09:55

Congratulations on all your accomplishments over the past year! I love the idea of a nice cream revolution. I'm planning on purchasing the cookbook for this summer. After having scrounged the internet for recipes that other bloggers have shared, all I have to say is you two are amazing! BUT this nice cream! Oh my, sweet potato and dates? Who would have guessed?! It looks magical! xx, Jess

Preheat the oven to 390 Fahrenheit (200 Celsius) degrees. Mix water and chia seeds in a small bowl and set aside for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, put all the other ingredients into a bowl and mix. Add the chia gel and stir. For the dough into a ball and press or roll out on a parchment lined baking pan. Bake for about 15 minutes or just until the crust starts to become a very light golden brown. Let it cool down a bit before adding the toppigs.

Chocolate Mousse:

1 cup steamed sweet potato pieces

½ cup cashew nuts, soaked for about 1 hour

5 fresh dates, pitted

½ cup almond milk, or other dairy free milk

4-6 tbsp raw cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

On top:

nut crust

raw chocolate

raspberries

peanut butter

Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth mousse. Add a bit more liquid if needed, so that you get a smooth mixture, but keep the mousse as thick as possible. Spread evenly on the pizza crust. Add the rest of the toppings. Serve and enjoy!

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It’s always so fun to watch how people have different ways of reacting to the first rays of spring sun here in the North. After a long and dark winter people get so cute with their excitement. Some switch immediately into their light jackets and start to trip along with their small spring shoes even though the ground is still completely frozen. (Ok, that was totally a granny thing to say, but I’m a person who just hates to freeze and keeps her pantyhoes on until June. So yeah, I’m a granny.) And some optimistic people, like my dear partner, switches the summer tires on. And then go travel with the tram or taxi when the snow suddenly decides to return. (Like it tends to happen and like it also happened last weekend.)

And then there are people like me, whose first thought is: Ice Cream! It really is some chemical reaction that happens in my brain: Sunrays –> Must make nice cream.

During the last week I have managed to make nice cream from many different kinds of ingredients, for example from purple yam aka Ube. The color was so amazing so it just yearned to be blended into a nice cream. Check it out from my Instagram!

The same thing happened a few days ago when I received a box of smoothies and breakfast bars from Semper. Naturally they started a new life as a nice cream. Well, some of them. Most of the bars ended up in the “quick snack stash” in our car and the smoothies in our refrigerators “panic shelf”, which is our family’s life saver. We are just so bad in routines, meal planning and all that wise adult stuff and the mealtimes manage to surprise us almost every time. Plus we usually move with super short notices so everything that is healthy and easy to grab along is totally needed in our household.

One of our favorite snacks are nice creams that can always be found in our freezer. Either we make nice cream from frozen bananas with frozen berries or fruits or almond butter or then we enjoy smoothie popsicles. It’s fun to have the familiar breakfast/snack, as in yogurt with berries and granola, in a form of an ice cream. The kiddo loves it and I don’t have to feel guilty for giving her ice cream or two as a evening snack. Win/Win.

Oh, and all the nice cream lovers in Finland – or people who understand Finnish – the Finnish version of the N’Ice Cream book by me and Tuulia Talvio is coming out as an ebook in a month with some new bonus recipes. So stay tuned, if you wish to download a huge package of nice cream recipes into your phone or computer. In the meantime you can start your Summer of N’Ice Cream with these popsicles!

Blend the soaked and strained almonds, water, and sweetener in a blender until smooth. Strain the mixture with cheesecloth on top of a bowl, so that you get a nice white almond milk. You can use the leftover almond pulp for example in crackers or bread rolls. If you want your yogurt to be thicker, add agar agar and boil the almond milk in a pot carefully for about 5 – 7 minutes. Take the pot from the stove and let it cool down (to a body temperature). Pour in the probiotics and mix. Pour the yogurt into a sealable clean (boiled or washed in a dish machine) and dry glass jar. Close the jar with a lid or cover with a cheesecloth and a rubber band. Turn the oven light on, but do not heat the oven. The oven light should keep the oven warm enough for the yogurt. Place the yogurt in the oven with the light on and leave the yogurt to set for about 8 – 12 hours. The longer you let the yogurt ferment, the stronger and sourer the flavor will be. Store the yogurt in an airtight container/jar in the refrigerator.

Blend the rolled oats and dates or raisins in a blender into a crumble or puree with a stick mixer.

Assembly:

Pour some almond yogurt into a bowl and add a few tablespoons of berry mixture. Stir gently few times so that you get nice swirls. Slice in some fresh berries if you like. Pour the mixture into a ice pop molds but leave a small space for the oat crumble. Fill the molds with the oat crumble or crumbled oat bars, add sticks and put into a freezer.

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Hello, love! I have one pretty delicious weekend greeting here for you! And it comes in a form of a pizza. I hope you like sweet potato, because this pizza crust is all about it. I mean ALL about it. Totally and completely. Nothing else added.

One of the most popular everyday foods in our household are mini pizzas made on small sweet potato slices. We all love them. They are super easy to make and it takes less than 30 minutes to get them ready. The only thing that started bugging me in the whole mini pizza process was that I always have to add all the toppings separately on each and every slice. So, as a great optimizer as I am, I started to think how could I use the same idea but in a bigger pizza size.

After a few test batches I found out that when I slice the sweet potato lengthwise with a cheese slicer and place the slices overlapping on a baking tray in a form of a round pizza, it makes a great crust which cooks up quickly. And when I sprinkle on some organic mozzarella (and/or feta or vegan cheese) it works like a glue for the slices and makes the pizza easy to eat. Of course you won’t get it as firm as a normal pizza crust would be, but firm enough so you can eat it decently – and with a smile on your face, because it’s just so so tasty.

As a pizza topping I used loads of greens, lovely vegetables and fresh herbs, which made the whole thing look so generous and verdant, especially when I added some edible flowers on it, that I named it the Green Goddess Sweet Potato Pizza. Talk about life energy and abundance.

If you like it more hard core, go ahead and add some organic meat and cheeses on, if you feel you get your divine energies better that way. My kid loves her sweet potato pizza with some tomato puree, tuna (MSC certified, of course) and pineapple. And as she’s going through some picky state of life, I let her enjoy it that way and won’t push my greens on her pizza.

What I love most about this recipe is that it takes less than 30 minutes to make and you can use almost anything you happen to have in the fridge, as long as you have sweet potatoes. As a person who live is the moment, not planning too much her eatings and at the same time gets VERY hungry VERY quickly this kind of a dish is just priceless.

So, there you go! I hope this delivered you some inspiration for the weekend. May the pizza goddess light your way to the kitchen!

V

Green Goddess Sweet Potato Pizza

Makes 1 pizza

Crust:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes

olive oil

sea salt

black pepper

pizza spice mix

garlic clove, minced

Filling:

pesto sauce

4.5 oz organic mozzarella (and/or feta or vegan cheese)

a couple of handfuls baby spinach leaves

1 spring onion

4 stalks of sweet baby broccoli

artichoke hearts (cooked/from a jar)

3 slices of lemon

pine nuts

olives

fresh oregano

fresh basil

sunflower sprouts

Preheat the oven to 390 Fahrenheit / 200 Celsius degrees. Cover a baking tray with a parchment paper. Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them with a cheese slicer or a mandolin vegetable slicer into very thin, almost transparent slices. Arrange the sweet potato slices on the baking tray so that they touch each other, making a circle. Fill in all the holes and also the inner circle, so that you get a circle with no holes or see-through spots. Now sprinkle on some olive oil, salt, black pepper and pizza spice mix. Also add garlic. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the sweet potato slices soften. Take out from the oven. Spread some pesto on the crust and add the cheese. Add also the spinach leaves. Cut the spring onion and broccoli into small pieces and sprinkle them on the pizza. Slice the artichoke hearts and add them with lemon slices, pine nuts and olives. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until the cheese melts and the filling gets a nice tanned color. Take out of the oven and season with fresh oregano and basil + sprouts. Serve and enjoy!

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Comments

Rachel Anderson5.3.2017 03:13

Ah, you never cease to amaze me. This is incredibly beautiful and I cannot wait to try it! I will be making this for a dinner party this week. Thank you for your continued inspiration and blessing us all with your talents! XOXO